Chapter 3:

Amanda goes into her office and sits in her chair.

“My oh my what a day!”

*She then picks up her phone and dials up her husband.*

“Hey hun how’s you’re day been today?” Amanda’s husband asks.

“Oh it was great, and I have a surprise for you when you get home tomorrow.”

“Oh really? Well I can’t wait to see it.”

“By the way, you’ll be doing some assembling when u get home.”

“Ok hun that’s no big deal I figured I’d have to do something now that it’s spring.”

“Well hun I love you and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Bye Dear.” Amanda says as she hangs up the phone.

*Amanda heads off to bed and goes to bed.*

*The next morning Sammie wakes up first but leaves her sisters alone and just plays quietly in her room.*

*Meanwhile Amanda is starting to stir in bed and finally gets up and puts a robe on to head downstairs.*

*She checks on the girls and sees Sammie awake but Haley and Lilly still asleep*

“Good morning sweetheart.” Amanda says to Sammie.

“Good morning momma.” Sammie says before standing up to give her mom a hug.

Meanwhile Lilly starts to stir downstairs and feels a bit strange. Her bottom hurt and she felt sick.

Haley finally wakes up and goes to find her momma.

“Hi momma.” Haley says to Amanda.

“Hey Sweetie, did you sleep ok?”

Haley nodded and proceeds to walk away to go check on her “twin”.

Lilly is just laying down trying to come to terms with what happened yesterday.

As she is thinking Haley comes up to her and says “Hey Lilly, how are you”

“Ok I guess, my bottom hurts but that's nothin.”

Amanda then walks in and says “Hi Lilly, how’d you sleep?”

Lilly states “Better than normal I guess.”

Amanda says to Lilly “ That’s good. You ready to get dressed? We’ve got a busy day today.”

Lilly nods and Amanda takes her out of the pack and play and takes her and Haley upstairs to get them dressed.

As soon as they get upstairs Amanda picks Haley up and changes her diaper then proceeds to dress her in a dress and tights.

She then proceeds to send Haley off to play with her sister.

Amanda then puts Lilly up on the table and asks Lilly “Were you smart in school before all this started?”

Lilly shakes her head no. “They had us take a test last year and it said I was as smart as a 2 year old. Lilly then proceeds to shake uncontrollably. Thankfully she was already dressed and Amanda could pick her up and calm Lilly down.

Lilly’s shaking stops after a few minutes and she proceeds to hug Amanda and whispers “Thank you mommy.”

Amanda replies “you're welcome sweetie, I love you to death.”

Lilly then asks “What happened to the girls daddy?”

Amanda approaches this question carefully as to not confuse Lilly. “The girls daddy is a nice man, he works all over the place because he runs a company.”

Lilly doesn't respond so Amanda continues “He’ll be home today and will meet his newest daughter today”

Amanda then proceeds to put Lilly on the floor and Lilly looks up at Amanda confused but doesn't say anything.

“Do you want to go play with the girls? Or do you want to cuddle with me in the living room until Daddy comes home?” Amanda asks Lilly.

“Cuddle.”

“Ok let’s go then.” Amanda says getting up and grabbing Lilly’s hand and leading her down to the living room.

“Lilly, you seem scared of something right now. Is there anything bothering you right now?”

Lilly doesn’t really have an answer to that question that would make sense so she says “I dunno. This just seems like a dream to me. You took me in without a second thought. You are letting me be myself and helping me overcome problems I don’t think I’d ever have by myself.”

“You’re giving me the second chance at life I could’ve only dreamt about before this happened. I never got any sort of love my early years in life. The two people that ever showed me any sort of love were my grandparents but they died a few years ago so I lost any sort of love in my life. All I ever wanted was a chance at doing things over and you’re giving me that.”

By this point Amanda is the one crying, she never realized how much this actually meant to Lilly.

“I don’t even know what to say Lilly, I knew that this meant something to you but I never realized that it meant that much to you for getting a second chance at life. I do want to ask you something Lilly. How far do you want to go with this?”

Lilly hadn’t thought about this until this point but says “ I really don’t know. I wanted to be thought of as a 2 year old like Haley but I didn’t think much further than that. I always thought of myself as the one nobody cared about when I was in school. I had one friend so to say but she moved during christmas this year.”

Amanda hugs Lilly then says “You’re family now Lilly, your free to be whoever you so choose. If that means you need a restart at life then we’ll give that to you. If that means that you want to be a girl that’s ok we’ll help you with that too. We’re here for you Lilly and I want to make sure you know that. You will become ours soon. I had the paperwork rushed so I could help you with all your problems.”

“Before I get too much further I do want to ask something, Do you happen to know anything from any previous doctor’s visits?”

Lilly thinks for a moment and says “The only 2 things I remember are that the doctor said I was both a boy and a girl and that I was heavily behind on shots.”

Amanda sits there thinking “Did I hear what I think I just heard? The kid sitting with me right now is Intersexed? The shot thing wasn’t major because she could have that sorted out when she took the girls to the doctor’s next.”

“Lilly, if what you said is true about you being both a boy and a girl, then we could have your unneeded parts removed and you could grow up the same as Haley and Sammie.”

Lilly doesn’t know what to say at this point as she is shocked by what her mother is telling her right now.

“I’d like that but I don’t know how i’d feel if things went wrong”

“Leave that part to me and your Father, in the meantime how about we go take care of getting Sammie dressed?

Lilly goes with her momma to go get Sammie and get her ready for the day.

After Sammie is dressed they hear the front door open and close.

Lilly thinks in her head “oh that must be the girl’s daddy.” Something didn’t quite feel right in her body about the possibility of the person that just arrived in the house actually being her new father.

This feeling got her scared and she ended up going back in the room they were just in and hid under the bed that was in the room. Her memories started flowing back in rapid succession and really startled Lilly.

The memories of her real father beating her senseless every time she walked in the door. The memories of her worthless father not giving her a care in the world. The memories of her father never wanting to care for his kid at any point in her life.

Meanwhile, downstairs the girls are overjoyed to have their father back and are bombarding him with hugs and kisses once he got in the door.

Lilly upon hearing this starts to loosen up a bit and starts to calm herself down.

Amanda starts to feel like something is missing but she can't quite remember what. She then realizes that Lilly is still upstairs and says she’ll be right back to her husband.

She walks into the room where she changed the girls and sees Lilly lying on the floor just staring into thin air.

Amanda says “Lilly are you ok?”

Lilly looks over and sees Amanda and gets up and hugs her hard.

“No I not okay.”

Amanda picks Lilly up and sits in a chair she has in the room and starts rocking.

“It's okay to cry Lilly, we won't hold it against you if you feel like you have to cry. We're here for you and we know you were not loved previously. Just let it out Lilly, keeping this inside you will only make it worse.”

Lilly doesn't know what to think right now. On one side she wants to cry but the other side of her is resisting what Amanda just said.

“Tank yous Amanda. You weally made me happy. “

Amanda hugs Lilly and asks her “Are you ready to meet your new daddy?”

Lilly looks up at Amanda and nods.

Amanda picks Lilly up and brings Lilly down by her husband where he is playing with his girls in the family room.

Her husband proceeds to look up at her with Lilly in her arms and says “Who is this little cutie?”

Lilly blushes at being called a cutie.

Amanda then proceeds to say “ This is Lilly, a friend of the girls who was orphaned after her house burned down with her parents in it.”

“I heard about that house fire on the news. Such a tragedy. Are we adopting her?”

“Yes we are, this was my surprise that I mentioned over the phone.”

“Before we go much further hun I must warn you that she may not open up to you right away. She was abused by her father and doesn't take to men very easy.”

“We’ll take it slow hun, but I do want to hold her if she’ll let me.”

Lilly doesn't really comprehend what he just said but Amanda saves the day by saying “Can Daddy hold you for a bit sweetheart?”

Lilly whispers “He won't hurt me will he?”

“No he won't but if you feel uncomfortable then just say so.”

Lilly nods and Amanda hands Lilly over to her husband.

In the arms of her new father, Lilly feels quite unusual, not really uncomfortable but just a sense of kindness that she never felt in the arms of any man since her grandfather.

Is this person ok to be my new father?

Amanda is looking on at her husband holding Lilly, watching her to see any signs of her not being comfortable. To her surprise Lilly is taking this quite well.

Her husband says “ She's adorable. But before we go to eat I would like a shower because the shower in my hotel room broke the last night I was there so I couldn't shower before coming home.”

Her husband stands up and sets Lilly on the floor next to Haley and Sammie.

“I’ll be back girls. I'm going to take a shower then we will go get some food ok?”

Haley and Sammie nod but Lilly doesn't do anything because she honestly didn't know what to do.

After her husband left to shower, Amanda picked up Lilly and sat on the couch with her.

“Were you ok with daddy?”

“I be ok wit daddy, he seem nice.”

“Me no feel wight when he talked before weaving.

“You’ll get used to it Lilly.”

About 10 minutes pass and Daddy comes back out in a different set of clothes.

“Are we ready to go ladies?”

“We just need to get shoes on and we’ll be ready.”

Amanda helps the girls get shoes on and then grabs the diaper bag and heads out to the car.

She gets the girls in their car seats and they head off to eat.

While they are on their way to the restaurant dad decides to ask Amanda some stuff about Lilly.

“I know we were talking about adopting another kid but I wasn't expecting it so soon.”

“There's more to Lilly than what meets the eye.”

“I had a feeling something like that was the case.”

“She was abused by her father the first few years of her life and is very shy.”

“How old is she? I don't think I asked you before we left.”

“She's about a month younger than Haley.”

“There's more that I need to ask but I think she's a keeper. She's such a doll.”

By the time that conversation finished they were at the restaurant.